How “Deposits” Are Lying to You in Financial Discovery
If you’ve ever added up bank deposits and thought, “Great, I’ve got income nailed down,” this post is for you.
Bank statements are snapshots. They leave out just enough information to get you in trouble.
This resource is written for attorneys handling financial disputes who rely on bank deposits to analyze income, cash flow, or asset movement.
What Bank Statements Actually Show
Bank statements show net deposits.
They do not always show what was actually received. That distinction matters.
When lawyers rely on deposit totals alone, they’re often working with incomplete information and that partial information produces confident, but wrong, conclusions.
Example: $3,000 Disappears
John receives a $10,000 check. He takes it to the bank, fills out a deposit slip for the full amount, and asks the teller for $3,000 in cash back.
The bank statement later shows a deposit of $7,000.
If discovery stops at the bank statement, the financial record reflects $7,000 of income. The missing $3,000 never appears. No altered documents. No red flags. No obvious wrongdoing.
Just money that quietly drops out of the analysis.
This is a common way income is understated in financial cases and it happens in plain sight.
What Is Deposit Detail in Financial Discovery?
Deposit detail includes the underlying records that show how a deposit was composed, including:
deposit slips
images of deposited checks
records showing any cash received or withheld at the time of deposit
Bank statements alone do not provide this information. They summarize the outcome, not the transaction.
Why This Matters in Real Cases
Based on my experience analyzing bank records for over 15 years, deposit detail is one of the most important things to request in addition to bank statements.
Your case may hinge on understanding whether deposits were cash, checks, or something else entirely (like money orders). Without deposit detail, you miss the clues that can take a case in a very different direction.
When that detail is missing, lawyers are often left with:
income analyses that are incomplete
cash flow reconstructions that are estimates at best
opposing counsel responding with, “You never asked for that.”
Once discovery closes, these gaps are usually permanent.
If your discovery request can be fully satisfied with a bank statement alone, it’s probably not strong enough.
